


like i am home again

by audioDramatist



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Texting, but it's a hammock, they have a group chat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 19:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audioDramatist/pseuds/audioDramatist
Summary: Stan and Bill try to get some work done in the clubhouse. Unfortunately, Richie talks in his sleep.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 193





	like i am home again

“No, listen. It’s the end of an era, right? They had to kill Luke so that they could like, move on–” Stan flipped open the door to the clubhouse, and Bill moved to climb down the ladder as he interrupted.

“No! No, they didn’t! Leia’s still alive, and–”

“He’s the Yoda! He’s the Yoda so he had to die. It’s called a parallel, Bill!” Stan watched Bill approach the floor, and started the descent. Bill jumped the last two rungs and waited for him at the bottom, already prepared with a retort.

“It’s called bad writing! They’re just rehashing the plot of the original trilogy, but it’s worse, because what used to be a twist is predictable now–” Bill said, as Stan reached the bottom of the ladder. They headed for the shelves in the back of the dimly-lit room.

“It was predictable then! Fucking Joseph Campbell had it all mapped out, there’s no–”

Bill stopped short, jabbing Stan in the ribs; hard.

“Ow, what the fuck was—“

“Shh! Shut up, Stan.”

Bill pointed (rather ungracefully) right in front of them.

Richie Tozier—Trashmouth Tozier—was sitting in the hammock, reading a comic book. Eddie was lying at the other end of the hammock, fast asleep. Richie looked up at Bill and Stan for a second, put his finger to his lips in the universal sign for “shhh”, and returned to his book.

Stan rolled his eyes—he knew Richie, and he knew that if it had been anyone but Eddie asleep next to him, they would’ve gotten something like a face full of shaving cream instead of a good, absolutely fucking silent nap.

Bill grabbed a handful of markers from the shelf and a piece of posterboard he’d stashed earlier that week, and laid them out on a makeshift table in the corner. He was running a bake sale fundraiser for the creative writing club so that they could print their literary magazine, and had put off some of the sign-making till the last minute. He needed to focus. Stan grabbed his journal and a pen and joined him. They worked in silence for a few minutes.

“I’m gonna head home,” Richie said suddenly. Stan almost jumped—he’d forgotten that he and Bill weren’t the only ones in the clubhouse.

Smoothing over his surprise, which included making sure that Bill hadn’t seen it, he nodded, expecting Richie to fold up his comic and climb up the ladder and out into the barrens.

Instead, he tossed the book lightly onto the floor, rubbed his eyes, and settled farther down into the hammock. Eddie stirred but didn’t wake, shifting slightly as well so that he and Richie were the smallest bit closer.

Stan locked eyes with Bill. He was clearly trying to stifle a laugh. As if they’d both had the idea at the same time, both boys reached into their pockets and pulled out their phones.

Stan managed to snap a photo and send it off to the official Losers group chat first.

Stan: Look who we found.  
Bill: taking a lil nippy nap  
Bev responded immediately: OTP!???!?

Stan rolled his eyes—typical.

Richie made an incoherent noise—somewhere between a whine and a sigh. Stan made a face. Bill pretended not to notice, and returned to his poster.

Stan: Bill and I are in the clubhouse and RICHIE AND EDDIE ARE ASLEEP IN HERE. I’M UNCOMFY.  
Stan: Love Bill though herh.  
Stan: *hehe.  
Bev: rip  
Bev: that’s so unfortunate

Richie stirred again, and Stan thought for a full five seconds that he was wide awake and ready to make good on his promise to fucking go home already–he even sat up.  
Bill locked eyes with Stan as if ready to have the most intense staring contest known to man.  
Stan’s fingers moved across his phone without him having to look at all.

Stan: Wait, I just—  
Stan: Oh, they woke up.

Stan opened his mouth to say something, but Richie had already slumped back into the hammock—if he’d been close to Eddie a minute before, they were now literally on top of each other.

Stan: Oh no they didn’t, they just sHIFTED.  
Bill and I just GLANCED AT EACH OFHER.  
*Other.  
Bev: r u really gonna livetweet me this encounter  
Stan: IT’S NOT A LIVETWEET IF IT’S NOT ON TWITTER, BEVERLY.  
Bev: livetext  
Stan: Acceptable.

Stan poked Bill in the arm and gestured to his phone. Bill sighed, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and read the previous conversation. He was trying very hard not to laugh.

Bill: stan they’re gonna read this  
Stan: I don’t care, this is hilarious and painful and horrifying.  
Bev: SKSBDJBDISHDJDBD  
Bev: How are y’all doing  
Are they up  
Stan: Good. I’m journaling, Bill is making a poster. They are NOT up.  
Bev: nice !!  
do y’all want soda?  
Stan: Honestly, yeah.  
Want to come down & shake the soda cans loudly by accident on purpose?  
Bev: you read my mind :)

“Put down the baby, ’s gonna get hit,” Richie mumbled.

“What baby? Richie, what are you talking… about…” Stan trailed off as he looked over at Richie, who was obviously still asleep. Bill gestured at the comic book abandoned on the floor. A Spiderman held a baby on the brightly-colored cover. Stan nodded. There was motion from the hammock, but neither of them took much notice.

Stan: Richie talks in his sleep.  
This is the worst day of my life.  
Bev: worse than the time we almost got murdered by a clown?  
Stan: Second worst.  
Bill: :///  
Bev: Sorry y’all lmao  
Bill: i just wanna FINISH my POSTER & GO TO PRACTICE  
i have track in 3 hours and i can’t keep getting distracted by these blockheads  
should i blast africa by toto  
would that be mean  
Bev: I mean…  
Stan: It would, but also...  
Earlier Eddie told me that I might get a rare ‘but surprisingly virulent’ lung disease because  
my parents installed a hot tub in the pool, and I just want him to suffer a bit.  
Stan: Or a lot.  
Bill: we need one of those staples buttons but it just says "yes i KNOW"  
Stan: YOU’RE RIGHT  
Bev: EKDBDJDHDJDB  
WE DO  
Bill: my mom has a button that just says "no" when you hit it, i'm trying to cop & adapt it for our purposes

A few minutes later (thankfully, without mishap) Beverly descended into the clubhouse, a backpack slung over one of her shoulders. Once she was firmly on the ground, she pulled a few cans of Moxie out of her bag. Stan scrunched up his nose at the cans, and Bev smiled, and produced a ginger ale for him before stepping towards the hammock (her boys).

“How the fuck did that happen?”

“What?” Bill and Stan said at the same time, their eyes following the path of Beverly’s gaze back to the hammock.

“It’s just funny—in the picture you sent me, they’re on opposite sides of the hammock.”

“And?”

“And now they’re like. Fuckin’ spooning.”

Stan huffed his most exasperated sigh yet. “I don’t want to know.”

Determined to check what Bev was saying, Bill took a swig of Moxie and peeked over at Richie and Eddie. He spit a mouthful out onto the floor, coughed, and when he caught his breath again, muttered, “Bad.”

Bev stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to bite back a laugh. “I fucking hate my life,” she said between giggles.

“L. M. F. A. O.” Stan deadpanned, his face completely blank (maybe a little bit on purpose).

It was Bev’s turn to take a pic for the Losers chat. She sent it without a caption, but Bill soon provided the perfect one.

Bill: hhhh disgostang  
Bev: LITERALLY HOW AND WHY

Bev helped Bill out with the rest of the poster while Stan finished his journal entry. It came out nicely: Bill’s big, bold hand describing the reason for the fundraiser, listing the price of each item, Bev doodling flowers and vines to fill the empty space. Stan colored in the block print “BAKE SALE” at the top of the posterboard. After about an hour, they packed up and headed on their way, leaving a few cans of soda on the table for their next trip to the clubhouse. Stan picked up Richie’s discarded comic book off the floor and placed it on the shelf as he left.

* * *

Richie’s first thought was that he wanted to keep having the dream he’d been having, although he couldn’t quite remember what it had been about.

His second thought was that there were ropes digging into his legs.  
His eyes snapped open, and he was met with a shock of dark hair.

“What the fuck?” he said out loud, and the body next to him—(what the actual fuck??) shifted.

And it all came flooding back.

Fighting over the hammock (yet again), climbing on top of Eddie, Eddie falling asleep (it was possible that Richie had spent a good twenty minutes watching this phenomenon, but he didn’t have to think about that), and he had a vague memory of Bill and Stan coming into the clubhouse before he’d drifted off as well. Eddie’s hair was tickling his nose, and as Richie tried not to sneeze he realized just how close they were. He had his arm thrown around Eddie’s waist, and Eddie’s face was tucked into the crook of his neck. He didn’t know whether to try and untangle himself now, before Eddie woke up, or try and pretend he was still asleep and let the smaller boy deal with this situation later.

Unfortunately, Eddie had already chosen the latter. And now that Richie was awake, the jig was up. He did his best impression of a person who had just woken up from a nap, and had not been fake-sleeping in his friend’s arms for at least ten minutes. It wasn’t a very good ploy, but it worked well enough.

“Hey,” Eddie whispered, after a slightly-overacted yawn.

“Hiya.” Richie awkwardly lifted his arm, giving Eddie the chance to sit up. He didn’t.

“Did’ja have a nice nap?” he asked, and shifted away enough to look Richie in the eyes. He’d never seen him so red. Richie, who’d lost his glasses at some point, couldn’t see much at all.

“‘S fine. Think the ropes cut off my feet.” Richie said, and Eddie laughed. “No, don’t laugh! I’m a double amputee! You’re gonna have to get me those crutches out of your garage so I can hobble around like–”

“–I don’t have crutches in my garage, why do you think I own every piece of medical equipment–” Eddie sat up, and happened to find Richie’s glasses near his foot. He shoved them onto the other boy’s face, without interrupting the bit he was doing.

“Gonna be shuffling around Derry like ‘spare a nickel? A nickel for a poor footless boy?’”

“Your Oliver Twist is horrible. It’s horrible and–”

“‘Please sir, just another twopence and I’ll be able to feed my poor footless mama’”

“Why is your mom also footless in this scenario?”

“Diabetes.”

“Insulin prices are through the roof.”

“Eat the rich, man.” Richie pulled his phone out of his pocket and hopped out of the hammock. “Oh, shit,” he said immediately, “Who died?”

“What?”

Wordlessly, Richie plunged his hand into the pocket of Eddie’s jeans—“WHAT THE FUCK, RICHIE!?!?”—and handed him his phone. The lock screen read “Bill: jesus fucking christ stan + 142 more”.

Eddie stared at the number—he’d gotten this many texts before, but never during the daytime and never when Richie wasn’t texting.

“How many fucking texts did they send?”

“Over a hundred, but that’s normal.”

“No, man, it’s you that blows everyone’s phones up with your stupid memes all the time—“  
“They’re high quality Losers’ Clu—“  
“Fucking bullshit, you make them on Snapchat.”

“Well what could possibly be going on that we missed in three hou—“

“Four,” Eddie insisted, ready to fight about exactly what time they’d arrived at the clubhouse—his watch was always right.

“Three hours and forty minutes.”

“Bullshit, it’s been more than four hours—“

“Maybe for you—“

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

But Richie was no longer invested in their normal back-and-forth.

In fact, he looked like he might not even be breathing.

“Richie.”

Eddie took a step closer to look over Richie’s arm—not his shoulder, he was too short—at the messages, and then he understood.

Ben: Guys be nice.  
Bev: we are its cute!!  
Stan: I have nothing nice to say so I won’t say anything at all.  
Bev: u know u think its cute too  
Stan: *You  
*You  
*It’s  
If they would just admit that they’re.  
Fucking.  
In.  
Bill: can i remind you again that theyre going to read this??  
Stan: LOVE.  
And then we could all call it a day!!  
Mike: You really put your foot in it, dude  
Stan: Just look at them and tell me you can’t tell.  
[Stan Uris has sent an image]  
Bill: jesus fucking christ stan

And those were only the most recent messages.

Shit, Eddie thought, taking his own phone in hand and scrolling up through the texts. ‘otp, LITERALLY HOW AND WHY.’ Photo after photo of him and Richie. Shit shit motherfucking fuck, shit, oh FUCKING– they knew. Or at least, Stan did. But worse than that, they seemed to think Richie felt the same. Which would be ridiculous. And untrue. Eddie didn’t like to get his hopes up. And he’d been trying so, so hard to hide his crush, but it was in vain because the Losers knew.

However. They 1. seemed to feel (however wrong Eddie might argue they were) that he and Richie already acted like a couple, and 2. seemed not to mind at all. He could work with that. The bigger concern was Richie. Who still hadn’t moved since checking his messages.

“Richie,” Eddie said again, and reached out to push his friend’s shoulder.

Richie flinched.

“Hey. Rich.” This time, when he touched his shoulder, he didn’t let go. “Look at me.” Richie did. He looked small, in a way he never had even when he was at his most afraid. Even in the face of a killer clown, he was always so loud and brash. And now… Eddie thought of the time he broke his arm, and Richie was right there to tear his gaze away from It and make sure he was safe. His turn. “Listen, if you want me to go off on them, I will.”

Richie laughed and swiped at his eyes. “Yeah, I know. Y’don’t have to, though.”

“They’re just messing with us because we never let them have the hammock,” Eddie said, and smiled. Richie smiled too.

“Sharing is caring and I don’t do neither.”

“You do.”

“Yeah,” Richie whispered. “I do.” He hesitated for just a moment, then pulled Eddie into an abrupt hug. When they broke apart, the color in Richie’s cheeks had returned full force. “I. Uh. Thanks.”

Eddie reached up and straightened his glasses. “It’s okay. You ready to head home?”

“Ready freddy, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said, and Eddie didn’t bother pretending to be annoyed. He handed Richie the comic book from the shelf and started up the ladder, knowing that Richie would follow close behind.

* * *

The last image Stan sent: Richie and Eddie still in the hammock. Richie’s glasses lie dangerously near Eddie’s feet, but both of them are too dead to the world to notice. They look simultaneously like they were haphazardly thrown against each other and like they fit together perfectly. Eddie’s nose is tucked under Richie’s chin, his hands folded underneath his own chin, right against Richie’s chest. Richie’s arm is draped over Eddie’s waist. They’re too big to actually fit on the hammock at this point—Richie’s free arm is dangling off at an awkward angle and Eddie’s feet almost touch the floor—but they look like they haven’t slept this well in a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> co-written by my friend vivi, who does not have an ao3 account for some reason. she sends me so many links! how do u not have an account viv! >:P
> 
> loosely based on actual, super unfortunate events that occurred in our college common room. to a point where stan, bill & bev's text convos are lifted almost verbatim from our group chat. disgostang.
> 
> bonus points for anyone who guesses richie's comic book - g


End file.
